An inventory of his collection at Syracuse University

Papers of the American poet, author. Manuscript for Micheline’s book In the Bronx and Other Stories, including typescript and holograph copies of "In the Bronx" as well as a number
of other selections with corrections and notations by the author.

Jack Micheline was born Harvey Martin Silver on November 6, 1929, in New York, N.Y.,
to Herman (a mechanic and postman) and Helen (Michelin) Silver. He changed his name
legally in 1963, choosing "Jack" after Jack London and "Micheline" by adding an e
to his mother's maiden name.

Micheline's first poem was published in 1954 as he worked a series of odd jobs; a
year later, he moved to Greenwich Village and in 1958 his collection River of Red Wine, which boasted an introduction by Jack Kerouac and garnered favorable reviews from
critic Dorothy Parker, established him as a writer. Today he is also a painter and
painting instructor and has also gained recognition for his primitive-style paintings.

Although relatively unknown to many in the literary world, Micheline is nevertheless
regarded as one of the few Beat generation poets who continues to produce important
work. Both the style of his writing (his poetry is intended to be read aloud and
reflects the rhythms of the spoken word, particularly ethnic dialects, as well as
jazz music) and its substance (populated by society's rejects such as destitutes,
dreamers and drunks) place him squarely within the Beat milieu, although he himself
considered the "Beat Movement" to be an invention of publishers' propaganda. He was
also closely associated with many prominent Beat artists, writers and poets, particularly
Jack Kerouac with whom he maintained a long-standing friendship (in 1982 Micheline
gave a public poetry reading at the Jack Kerouac Conference of the Naropa Institute
in Boulder, Colorado).

Writers such as Langston Hughes, William Saroyan, Charles Bukowski, Allen Ginsberg,
Ken Kesey, and Miriam Patchen have praised his work, and he is considered an inspiration
by many young San Francisco writers. In his essay on Micheline, Gerald Nicosia writes,
"[Micheline found] a new conception of the poet as a peripatetic witness, whose job
it was to discover beauty beneath the various lies with which men had masked it and
to record everything he saw."

The Jack Micheline Papers consist of a single series, Writings, which contains the manuscript for his book In the Bronx and Other Stories. Included are typescript and holograph copies of "In the Bronx" as well as a number
of other selections with corrections and notations by the author.

Access Restrictions

The majority of our archival and manuscript collections are housed offsite and require
advanced notice for retrieval. Researchers are encouraged to contact us in advance
concerning the collection material they wish to access for their research.

Use Restrictions

Written permission must be obtained from SCRC and all relevant rights holders before
publishing quotations, excerpts or images from any materials in this collection.